Poorly treated characters
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
"Insane" is a gross overstatement. Mental health is as complex as physical health, and there are all sorts of ways that a mind can be subtly impaired while still being functional, just as a person can be, say, severely nearsighted or deathly allergic to peanuts yet otherwise have good physical fitness. "Insane" is a term with no legitimate medical meaning; it's actually a term of law, referring to being unable to understand one's actions or to recognize whether they're wrong. There are many mental-health conditions that can affect a person's behavior or personality, make them behave in ways that seem out of character, without impairing their basic rationality or ability to function and thus without approaching the legal definition of insanity.
What we're talking about with Janeway post-String Theory, IIRC, is more along the lines of a behavioral or personality disorder such as bipolar disorder (manic depression), though less severe. There's no reason to think it would impair Janeway's ability to function, and calling it "insanity" is like referring to chronic back pain as quadriplegia.
thing is, I was working on a pitch which features him when IFM got commissioned, so if ever that story happens, he'll have to come back to be in it! So what happens in IFM is slightly geared towards putting him where he'd need to be in that story, if it ever happens....
Amen to that...
Christopher. Your problem is that you seem to know a lot more about various fields than the average reader. At the end of the day, Janeway is described as "insane" is this novel. It doesn't matter if it has legitimate medical meaning or not. I'm a reader, not a doctor.
The first "out of character" action of Janeway's that continuity patch "explained" was the episode "Night," where she didn't leave her room for two months.
I think it was a cheap, insulting choice that denigrates the character. There have been no shortage of tie-in novels that propose off-screen events and rich inner lives to account for apparently-inconsistent characterization in the original work, and I see nothing laudable in choosing to take every possible hole in the last three years of the show and paper over them with an explanation that captain was mentally impaired and that no one else was allowed to talk about it or stop her if it ever caused a problem.
Wouldn't it be blatantly irresponsible, even cruel, to pretend that there's nothing abnormal with someone who has clinical depression, or bipolar disorder? It'd be like encouraging your guy with back pain to lift as many heavy boxes as he wants.
I've also been less than thrilled with pretty much everyone's treatment in New Frontier post-time-jump. Let's not even get started on what happened with Sisko in Rough Beasts of Empire.
There you go -- it was the canon itself that established her propensity for such behavioral abnormalities. I mean, a captain refusing to leave her quarters for two months? That's a pretty blatant symptom of depression, and probably a dereliction of duty. And it's not something the books made up, it's right there in the canon. The books have to make the best of what the canon provides them with, and if the canon itself shows Janeway as prone to depression and inconsistent behavior, the books simply have to cope with that as best they can.
See, the mistake you're continuing to make is the assumption that she was "impaired." That's simply untrue. It was stated explicitly on p. 378-9 of Evolution -- check for yourself -- that Janeway would be "fully capable of commanding" her ship. The only stated effect is that sometimes, on infrequent occasions, "her emotions will become erratic" and her actions "may seem atypical." We're not talking about impairment, i.e. loss of ability to function. We're just talking about occasional mood swings. Lots of people have those. Heck, I have those.
This is probably proof of an updated Godwin's Law.
Guys, don't be wimps. Look at the very first sentence of the original post.
You can't, logically (heh), discuss any detail like this in books or episodes withOUT going into plot points and "spoilers."
C'mon, get real.
^But Indistinguishable from Magic is a much more recent book than the others. It stands to reason that it hasn't been as widely read yet, that its spoilers are far more "current" than the other examples.
So, hurry up, get that accepted, written, and published!
A certain amount of psychological issues, sometimes influencing her behaviour as a Starfleet officer, has been documented and plausibly exist.
I found Janeway's behaviour in Before Dishonor believable. She's been willing to take great risks with the Borg before, going so far as to deliver herself to the Borg for temporary assimilation so as to be a deep-cover agent. (Hunting down Borg scout ships for their transwarp coils also count.) Next to this, Janeway going escorted to a Borg supercube certified by multiple experts to be inert is trivial.
Janeway wasn't misused. She encountered a terrible fate as a consequence of the sorts of actions she has performed in the TV canon.
For which I thank you. That applies to me perfectly. I've read all the other books being discussed here besides the String Theory trilogy, but I've had years to read those, so I feel I was properly warned in the beginning of the thread. But in the case of Indistinguishable from Magic, I just bought it recently and haven't had the chance to start it yet.
And yeah, I heard River Song's voice in my head when I read your post saying that too.
That was a tally uncalled for and rude comment. Please edit your post to remove it.
^ I don't understand what upset you. Bob Karo pointed out that Janeway is unfortunately likened to Hitler via the analogy to Godwin's Law, and that that isn't likely to end well. Your comment seems to suggest at least some accuracy to the latter sentiment.
I think that the degree and breadth of unhappiness that her use in Before Dishonor produced suggest that she was misused, whatever the dramatic arguments to the contrary.
In my experience, a logical model that produces a result at odds with reality is wrong, no matter how well-founded. Ultimately, the reality is that the form and nature of her death were upsetting to a large portion of the Voyager fans who were aware of it. Frankly, I don't understand the point of keeping Janeway dead, other than a misguided adherence to the increasingly overwrought novel continuity. (I cringe every time an author describes their having established something, rather than portrayed it.)
I think that the degree and breadth of unhappiness that her use in Before Dishonor produced suggest that she was misused, whatever the dramatic arguments to the contrary.
In my experience, a logical model that produces a result at odds with reality is wrong, no matter how well-founded. Ultimately, the reality is that the form and nature of her death were upsetting to a large portion of the Voyager fans who were aware of it. Frankly, I don't understand the point of keeping Janeway dead, other than a misguided adherence to the increasingly overwrought novel continuity. (I cringe every time an author describes their having established something, rather than portrayed it.)
There has to be a Downfall parody vid in this...
...that that's how death generally works. Kind of why it's called "death" rather than "some time off for tax reasons"...